"What we really want to talk about today—it's kind of important to some people—it's haircuts of the 1970s."

Two men accusing of placing electronic advertising devices around the city in a publicity stunt that stirred fears of terrorism and shut down parts of the city were released from jail Thursday, apparently amused with the prank.

Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28, were released on $2,500 cash bond after each pleaded not guilty to placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct for a device found Wednesday at a subway station. They waved and smiled as they greeted people in court.

Outside, they met waiting reporters and television cameras and launched into an unusual discussion of hair styles of the 1970s.

"What we really want to talk about today—it's kind of important to some people—it's haircuts of the 1970s," Berdovsky said.

I just watched the press conference on Fox—it's a complete hacking and demolition of the entire concept of a press conference. [UPDATE: Video is here.] In response to a question on what would happen if they were sent to prison, Stevens said "Whatever happens, I feel like my hair is safe right now." And the assorted reporters got pissier and nastier in response to the prankers who refused to stop joking.

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Bravo. Good for them for not giving into this high-powered, media driven lynching: all of it to cover up the fact that Boston’s authorities screwed up, the media overreacted, and no one is capable of just going “oops” and laughing it off.

False alarms for stupid shit is just a fact of life in a time of high security.

I’ve noticed that media people tend to get really upset when someone refuses to play according to the script. It wrong-foots them. Since media people depend on their image and reputation for their income, they tend to react badly when they suspect that they are being made to look silly.

The news media are playing along with the government line that this is a really big deal, and these guys are treating it as being frivolous. These guys are right, but they are going to be turned into hamburger by the government.

In the defense of the city officials, Turner’s people trespassed on their property and vandalized it, sort of.

In placing the signs where motorists could see them, the installers did not ask the owners of ther properties for permission. In most cases, the property was so-called “public” property, which is property that is, in effect, owned by the city or the state governments.

Of course, this is wrong. It’s morally akin to painting an ad for my new company on the wall of your house. Granted, the signs are easy to take down and are pretty mild as far as trespassing goes, but they were a violation of the property rights of the people who owned the things the signs were placed on.

With that being said, the town, state and federal government responses were bizarre, and I don’t think Turner broadcasting should bear the costs of the bizarre, idiotic response.

1) They were obviously not bombs. Bombers tend to not call attention to their devices. Only in the movies do they bleep or flash blinking lights.

2) Once the first device was analysed, it should have been clear that these were not, in fact, bombs.

So, let’s go back to my house-painting example. Actually, that example won’t work here. Let us say that I affixed a magnetic placard on your car that advertised my business and didn’t get your permission. Should I be forced to replace your entire car door because you freaked out, ripped it off of its hinges and threw it into a river?

PS. before people start excortiating me about 9/11 and IED’s and the like, I would like to point out that I spent my early child-hood living in Turkey and lost a playmate to a bomb. Hell, the Grey Wolves even tried to kill my father once (I have noticed that Turkish assassins tend to Clouseau like incompetence). I know what real terrorism is, and glo-brite lights ain’t it.

I know this happened in MA, but is there any way that Delmar Burridge could report these guys to the police? i feel like his involvement could make this the funniest thing that has ever happened in New England.

Not exactly. They’re artists hired through a third party firm to do advertising for the upcoming ATHF moviefilm.

It’s amazing that these ads were placed in 10 cities and I think many were up for quite some time before one dude from Boston noticed and called the authorities.

tarran, you have a point and they may well face fines/time for defacing public property or some such. The problem is that they’re being accused of perpetrating a terrorism hoax, which is absurd and should never stick.

The city of Boston was right to investigate a suspicious device, but they totally overreacted and are trying to save face by building up these guys to be something they’re obviously not.

Of course, Adult Swim showed an apology for the misunderstanding last night, and these two guys would be much better served if they just followed suit. However, it is hilarious to watch them taunt the media so.

“tarran, you have a point and they may well face fines/time for defacing public property or some such”

As I understand it, half the point of these things was that they were magnetic: in short, they caused no permanent damage to anything… until the police broke out their own supply of bombs and explosives and then detonated some. 🙂

Well, I now know to tell my loyal jihadis to disguise their bombs as simplistic electronic signs as if they were part of some subversive Zionist marketing ploy. No one will ever take these things seriously again and the bombs will go undetected. Thanks to Boston police for the idea.

I love how the Fox commentators were saying that their comments on hair to the press would not go over well with the judge on the case. What do their comments to the press, basically not saying anything about the case, have to do with any trial.

I love adult swim and ATHF. This is just too funny. That thing looks exactly like one of those lite-brite pages and anyone who would have thought otherwise must be mildly retarded. I can’t help but wonder that even if they had gotten a permit to put them up the same retard would have seen it and called the police anyways.

It’s not their jokes that are funny, it’s the entire incident and the fact that they had the balls to blow off the reporters, who were playing into it with their question, all of which unquestionably assumed the city’s side of things.

It also really goes to show what self-important pricks reporters are: their comments are very revealing as to their worldviews.

However, the fact that two twentysomething dorks have pointed up the stupidity of all of this terrorist fearmongering by the state and the press through what is quickly becoming an exercise in absurdism just has me giggling.

The Chief of Police should be fired and stripped of his pension. Claiming that something that resembles a Lite-Brite was fashioned to resemble a bomb is so puerile you can still see the stretch marks where the DA pulled it out of his ass. It took 45 minutes to pack-up the bomb-squad robot, and probably another 20 to wake up his technician (because all engineers on city payrolls are layabouts anyway), and god knows how long to set it up. In that time nobody on the BPD decided to do any form of internet search? Googling “cartoon character middle finger” never came to mind? Especially in a city where bigger and more-visible MIT pranks occur regularly?

The material ain’t bad for cooking it up in a holding cell five minutes before the press conference.Bless those boys.

The other amusing thing is that not only was there no reaction from the other 10 cities these things were posted, there was no reaction from the all the times this guy has posted similar installations in the past.

Not having ever seen the show and being generally unfamiliar with what people were talking about, I finally bumped into a picture of what the Boston DA is referring to as a “bomb hoax.”

I laughed my ass off.

The BPD should arrest itself for shouting “bomb” in a crowded city. The only person perpetrating a hoax is the Mayor. Worst of all, it having been made completely clear that this was intended to alert the public to a television show, the DA had the slippery stones to walk into a court and spew out the blatant lie that they intended for people to believe it was a bomb. What is he basing that on?

Authorities are investigating whether Turner or other companies should be criminally charged, Attorney General Martha Coakley said. “We’re not going to let this go without looking at the further roots of how this happened to cause the panic in this city,” Coakley said.

DUH! First off, what f***ing panic? Second, the cause of this purported panic was the overreaction of the AG’s heavies, i.e., the Boston PD. How can these words leave someone’s mouth (esp. that of a LAWYER) without their realizing that what she just said was totally inane?

“””I love how the Fox commentators were saying that their comments on hair to the press would not go over well with the judge on the case. What do their comments to the press, basically not saying anything about the case, have to do with any trial.”””

Fox thinks they are high and might. Really, they are just high. It gives them cause to say what’s wrong with liberal America.

I’m sure O’Reilly will use this as an example of why you need to by his book, Culture Warrior.

Kidding aside it shows what poor quality they really are at Fox with respect to law.

Exactly. Their overreaction was on par with that of Team America in Paris. Imagine if someone had died (maybe someone did?) as a result of all the road closures and panic. The Boston Police Department should not be let off the hook. They endgangered the public far more than the two Lite-Brite Bombers.

This reminds me of a favorite Bob Goldthwait moment. During the whole Shakes the Clown hubub where clown groups were protesting the movie, Goldthwait wound up on Katie couric’s show opposite a clown in full makeup.

So the clown does his spiel in a stupid clown voice “we think this movie reflects us clowns in a very poor light with kids.”

So Goldthwait responds, “good. Clowns scare kids, they scare me too.”

Couric steps in and says to Goldthwait, “will you take this seriously?”

Goldthwait says, “Nooooooooo. Listen, you’re interviewing me and a clown at seven o’clock in the morning. Did you lose a bet?”

Why should these guys take this seriously when this is possible the most ridiculous thing to make the national news in years?

Quickly? The signs were up for 3 weeks. The guys had nothing to hid, so no need to run. This is free press for the ad agency, Cartoon Network, and ATHF. Free press for the city of Boston too.

I think tarran’s point was that if they actually were committing the crime of hoax bombs, they certainly wouldn’t be calling up and saying “we did it”. BPD “caught” them because they called up and said “you guys are completely re-tah-ded”.

I hadn’t noticed before that the authorities had called in a Coast Guard cutter… ah, thank you Boston, for giving the gift of laughter. Now fire your authorities and hire people with double-digit IQs, or your reputation may never recover.

“The two devices found in an office at Tufts-New England Medical Center and attached to the Longfellow Bridge yesterday morning were not the marketing devices that sparked a daylong panic in Boston, but simulated pipe bombs, police officials said last night.

In the hospital incident, investigators believe a former hospital employee planted the phony bomb in an office at 185 Harrison Ave. He has been identified but has not been charged, the sources said.

Boston Police bomb squad cops detonated the pipe bomb, which was a very realistic-looking fake, the sources said.”

It all peaked when, upon arriving to appear on the Today Show after a sleepless flight, I was told that “a clown is going to debate you on the show.” I said, “I know, I’ve seen your program.” I was then informed that they meant a real clown, not Katie Couric. The clown and I shared a small dressing room; his name was Bamboozle. We were very cordial to each other, but he seemed a little confused when I informed him I was going to rip him a new asshole when we got out on the air. He asked, “Why?” I said, “‘Cause it’s TV. It’s not real. It’s like wrestling.” True to my word, when we got out there, the shit hit the fan. (Katie has gone on to claim on both Rosie and Conan that it was her worst interview ever. I take this as quite a compliment, coming from a woman who has to interview ‘NSync with a straight face.) Bamboozle said something like “Clowns do a lot of good work for kids and Bobcat’s film portrays them in a negative light.” I said, “Nobody thinks clowns are funny. The only reason you perform in hospitals is because that’s the one place a kid can’t get up and run away from you.” Katie started hitting me with her notes and asked,”Would you please be serious?” I said, “No, you’re interviewing me and a clown. What happened? Did you lose a bet with Bryant?” I have said and done much worse things on talk shows, but I have never been asked back on the Today Show.

Most people get nervous when they see a clown, because clowns give off this vibe that they are going to make you touch their penis. I get nervous when I see a clown, because I don’t know if he is going to slug me over something I said when I was trying to promote my low-low-budget movie.

i almost never read all your infantile wannabe-anarchist crap anymore, but i just wanted to confirm to myself that all you H&R people would love this hoax, and i wasn’t disappointed. yep, these guys are libertarian heroes, right up there with pit bull owners and parents giving booze to 12-year-olds.

just suppose there HAD been bombs planted by terrorists…of course they would have been disguised to not look like bombs. and i suppose you all know exactly what a bomb looks like. yeah, let that guy light his shoe on fire, it doesn’t look like a “bomb” and only a stupid cop would think it was. oops, wait, i can’t even use that hypothetical, cuz according to you all there are no terrorists in the first place, only the evil GWB.

justice holmes suggested in the ’20s that you can be punished for shouting “fire” in a crowded theater, and he was hardly a raging fascist. but apparently there are a lot of immature children who get their jollies watching the modern-day version of holmes’s example. and for what…the cartoon network??? are you kidding me??? i think maybe e! is the only cable network that is more lame.

hope you all enjoy getting 0.00001% of the vote in the next election again! and have fun watching your cartoon network movie…oooh, maybe they will say a bad word in it or use a poop joke. morons.

Well, by the rabid logic of Jimmy, anything that can possibly be misconstrued as a bomb should be banned. He obviously has a lot f experience.

Hey, see over in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they are constantly dealing with real IEDs? They are not looking for brightly lit novelty signs, the are looking for piles of debris, parked cars, and cinder blocks (really scary how realistic they look). Yes, I have seen them.

I guarantee that if there is a sophisticated plot, you won’t see wires sticking out the back of a Lite-Brite.

I hope they do use a poop joke in the ATHF movie.

and I hope Jimmy’s kids see it and turn into homosexual serial killers (poop jokes do that)

The reason that you are not permitted to shout “Fire” in a crowded theater is because it is an act of fraud (assuming there is no fire).

People pay to attend a theater to see some entertainment. If you shout fire falsely, causing them to flee, then you have deprived them of their entertainment. If you own the thater, you are basically stealing the patrons’ money. If you are not the owner, then you are, in effect, trespassing – since the theater owner wants people to stay and see the show.

The first ammendment does not come into it.

Now as to the claim that somehow these guys did the same thing, – er no. They never pretended that they had plantedbombs. To my knowledge they called in no threat. The devices clearly were manufactured with no “extra” components not needed to drive the lights.

Hell, you could pack a bigger bomb in some of the discarded shoes I’ve seen on Storrow drive or on the Longfellow bridge, but for some reason we don’t feel a need to shut down the city everytime someone loses something off their car.

This was a simple, loss of judgement casualty. Unfortunately, these guys have guns and prefer to hurt people over admitting that they did something dumb.

I think they’ll get off on any terrorist type charges because most of those types of crimes you have to actually intend to terrorize rather just intend to do some act that results in people being terrorized.

civil liability is different because trespass is an intentional tort so any damages (even unforseeable damages) that flow from the trespass are recoverable. Also claiming the city overacted will be no defense to an intentional tort.

The reason this rule exists is suppose I play a prank by moving your chair from under you before you sit down and this causes you to fall down and become cripple. Shouldn’t I pay your medical bills even if it was totally unforseeable that you would become cripple because of a silly prank? (otherwise you would have to pay your own bills for something I did).

Ted Turner will probably have to pay out the ass (since those guys don’t look like they have much money).

89% of the reporters at that “press conferences” are embarassments to their chosen profession… and they got exactly what they deserved (for attempting to “produce” a regional story into the national mind share).

I generally agree with the consensus here regarding the complete absurdity of this entire tawdry affair. (Is Barney Fife the chief of police in Boston?)

That being said, as soon as those two stoner dumbasses started in on their unfunny mumbling “comedy” routine, I wanted to smack ’em upside their heads. I never felt so much like my dad before in my life. Maybe I was just reacting to the “white guy with dreadlocks” thing.

There is nothing to even discuss about this. The fact that they were even arrested for this is just silly. I guess though, when you are an elected official who is responsible for one of the worst false alarms in recent history, and are apparently unable to tell an over abused lightbright from a bomb. I guess I can undestand scrambling to put the blame on somone else. “Quick, point the finger at the guy with the dreads!” lol, it’s a classic…

The fact that the media is jumping in on the lynching… is just sad. I mean come on. It makes a much better story to just rip on Boston for being this dumb 😉